‘There was very likely a great deal of uncertainty last year among donors about how the markets and other aspects of the economy were performing.’
—Chronicle of Philanthropy staff writer Maria Di Mento

Overall, however, Bezos and his fellow donors gave far less money to charity in 2018. Total giving among the “Philanthropy 50” amounted to $7.8 billion in 2018, roughly half the $14.7 billion given by the top 50 donors in 2017.

Stock-market uncertainty could be fueling the decline in giving

Americans as a whole gave a record amount to charity in 2017, in part because of robust stock-market returns that year. There’s no clear reason for the big drop in giving among the biggest donors in 2018, Di Mento said, but market performance could certainly be a factor. “There was very likely a great deal of uncertainty last year among donors about how the markets and other aspects of the economy were performing,” she said.

The list of top 50 donors includes titans of tech and finance. Many of their donations signaled a keen interest in the future. Much of the money was earmarked to research the effects of artificial intelligence, to preserve online privacy and shore up democracy.

The list of top 50 donors includes titans of tech and finance. Many of their donations signaled a keen interest in the future.

“A lot of people who seem to be very concerned about the future are directing significant portions of their giving to try to address things like AI, to make sure it will be used for good rather than bad,” Di Mento said.

Among those was Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who gave $125 million before he died in October to create a new research program at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence that will advance AI’s “common sense” problem-solving capabilities.

More gifts for homelessness

Also notable on this year’s list: more high-profile gifts focused on human services like alleviating homelessness, most notably the Bezos pledge. Others included Salesforce
CRM, +0.96%
CEO Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne, whose more than $100 million in donations included $6 million to transform a hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood into housing for the homeless.

New criticisms of philanthropy

In the past, donors have been less public about addressing issues like homelessness, Di Mento said. “I think those problems have become much more apparent, and there’s been some criticism of the uber-wealthy and whether or not they should be stepping up for those less fortunate,” Di Mento said.

‘Generosity is not a substitute for justice, and this list, like so many similar lists, must be read with balance. Unfortunately extreme generosity is often evidence of profiting from an extremely unjust system.’
— Anand Giridharadas, author of ‘Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World’

When Giridharadas looks at lists like the Top 50 donors, he sees a catalog of people who represent “major systemic flaws,” in that they’ve built their fortunes in part by perpetuating inequality, he told MarketWatch. “The point is not that these are all bad people,” Giridharadas said. But their role in our social problems must be acknowledged, he argued. “Generosity is not a substitute for justice, and this list, like so many similar lists, must be read with balance. Unfortunately extreme generosity is often evidence of profiting from an extremely unjust system.”

Bezos, to name just one example, has been accused of exploiting Amazon’s workers. The company raised the minimum wage for all its employees to $15 an hour in 2018, a move Bezos said he hoped other companies would follow. Amazon and the Day One Fund declined to comment.

Americans with the largest fortunes were not necessarily the biggest givers last year. “Although many of the people on the list are household names, not all are, and that is a sign that not all of America’s wealthiest are giving big sums to charity every year,” the Chronicle’s editors noted. In fact, “just 21 of the people on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans appear on this year’s Philanthropy 50; the rest are less affluent.” However, some donors keep their donations secret, so the Chronicle’s list doesn’t capture all the charitable giving that’s happening.

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Leslie
Albrecht

Leslie Albrecht is a personal finance reporter based in New York. She worked previously as a local news reporter at the New York City neighborhood news website DNAinfo, and as a reporter at the Modesto Bee and Merced Sun-Star, two McClatchy newspapers in California's Central Valley. She is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Follow her on Twitter @ReporterLeslie.

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